Don’t ya just love it, when ya change yer mind on a hunch first thing and go to a different spot, thinkin I got the perfect tide right now, only ta go 2 hours with out a bite. The go back to your original spot, catch 4 fish on the first pass and realize after it’s too late, Damn, that perfect tide, was for THIS spot! This happens to me 8 of 10 times I do that, I hate fishless mornings! But damn, that 9th & 10th time, is always a good move! Thank God I ain’t a baseball player, they’d fire me with a .200 avg! Then again, they might give me millions! HAR!

Thank God I didn’t catch a bass on my first cast with an Umbrella Rig! I’da got hung up on it for life like I did with a Jitterbug, Red Bomber, 208 Senko and Brown Jig! Not ta mention go broke buying the rigs and all those damn hooks & swimbaits! HAR!

So after a full day of fishing in the wind and current, I’m beat as I pull up to my dock. Attach all three lanyards, trim the motor out of the water, take all the pork off my jigs and store em safely, as well as my PFD & 5 rods in their locker, yes today I lock it, pump out the bilge, collect and dispose of empty water bottles, chip bags and used plastics, grab the cell, keys and e-smokers, hoist up the boat and head in fer some dinner. Only ta realize 10 minutes ago as I plug in my rechargeable batteries for the e-smoker, CRAP!!!!!!!! DOOD, ya forgot the most important thing on the boat, the batteries!! Guess I’m hangin out in the back yard today! HAR! HAR! HAR!

I personally think the petition to ban the A-rig is a noble one. There could be those who might claim it’s a senseless and silly thought process, it’s just a lure with multiple hooks and baits. But therein lies the problem, it is indeed a rig of multiple lures. In reality it’s a smaller version of a down rigger, who’s specific use for ages, has been used by saltwater fishermen for trolling, which by the way is an illegal form of catching fish in bass tournaments. The A-rig, is not a lure by any definition other than that of the wide array of opinions by many. It’s a rig, that allows you to attach many lures to present to fish. The lures that an angler can attach to this rig, is limitless, whether it be 3-5 swimbaits, grubs, Senkos, crankbaits, ripbaits, jigs, chatterbaits. This rig, allows you to attach multiple lures. If you remove ALL the lures, the A-rig is nothing at all.

Using such a rig to catch fish, on any given day, by anglers who are out to catch fish on their own time, to me is perfectly fine. Using the A-Rig in a tournament, I believe will have a greater impact from a negative standpoint than a positive one. Sure, it will increase sales of certain manufactures, but what about every other manufacturer who doesn’t make A-rigs and all the other baits we use? As tournament anglers, how are we gonna look our sponsors in the eye, continue to ask them to support us with the lures and baits they make, when every tournament angler will soon be using this rig exclusively?

What if this lure proves to continue to catch fish year round, and everyone in the field is tossing it? As bass fishing tournament anglers, do we all want to basically participate in A-rig tournaments only, where if yer not tossing this thing, yer just a donator? Rest assured, this thing will be just as effective in the spring when bass are spawning. Remember, only 30-40% of the fish in a lake spawn at the same time. They come in waves. That means 60-70% are out their susceptible to the A-rig. How many times has Dobyns won a spring time tournament, never targeting bed fish? This rig will catch those pre and post spawners, believe that. Comparing tournament fishing to other sports, I think is a lil farfetched. The tools we have at our disposal, unlike theirs, is unlimited. Why would we want to limit what the anglers are using? Basically that’s what would happen, anglers would be limited to “having” to use the A-rig to compete. I believe, bass fishing fans are more intrigued with seeing and learning about a wide array of tactics and the opportunity to be versatile. At some point, like the contestants, we will get bored and move on. Although, it would be very intriguing to sit and watch, waiting for that next cast that lands 5 fish that all cull and wins the tournament. But really, is that what we want out tournaments to turn into.  Culling is another complete issue, if you’ve already got a limit in the boat. Now what happens if ya pull 2-5 fish in at once? I see it now, a whole nother debate and push for changed regulations to govern this situation. Just not condusive to the sport in my mind.

Scott Martin, the FLWs Angler of The Year, made another great point in his seminar regarding his thoughts about this that I believe also are valid. The A-rig, is specifically used and effective to catch suspending fish. Fish that otherwise would be very difficult to catch. Suspending bass, by nature’s way,  are basically resting or recovering, attempting to escape harm’s way for whatever reason. The weekend crowd will be hammerin em and the tournament guys with their savvy are sure to find em even better. What affect will the constant onslaught of these fish being caught with the A-rig, have on our mortality of fishes in our fisheries?  Surely, there will be those arm chair anglers who will claim this to be no different than removing bed fish and relocating them, maybe rightfully so. Yet, It’s an interesting thought I had not seen discussed.

Bottom line is, it’s a rig of multiple lures, not a single lure. Tournament rules state we can only use an artificial lure. That rule’s intent, was for a single rod, and a single lure, not a rig full of several lures.  If the anglers who are fishing these high level tournaments, come together and decide they do not want this rig used in the events they are fishing, then so be it. It’s out of line for the rest of us arm chair anglers, to raise such a fuss about something we are not even going to be involved with.

For all the right reasons, I applaud BASS, Scott Martin and Mike Tuck for taking the stance they have regarding the Alabama rig. It is a rig, not a lure and if they choose not to have them used in their events, more power to em! As for the rest of us arm chair anglers, let’s go down, get in line, gobble em up and start tossin em, they are a fish catchin machine! I’ll still keep my Senko and jig rods on the deck though, 3 rods is perfect! HAR!

Keep It Simple Stupid! More often than not, we tend to over analyze and over react in our efforts to catch bass when fishing seems tough. I know I got caught up in this the past 4 weeks in my efforts to find a way to catch literally 100s of wintering bass I could see here on the River. I got so caught up in the “Come hell or high water I’m gonna figure this out” approach, I overlooked the obvious, Shallow Florida hybrids are very hard to catch in very cold, clear water. I’m not the greatest sight fisherman in the spring, what made me think I could catch em in the dead of the winter? DUH!

So I told myself after coming off the water on New Years Eve, dood, you have got to leave those fish be and get back to basics and fish like you normally fish here. Git yer jig out and go find fish in that 8-15 foot zone and fish em like ya do every year. Monday I did this, ventured out back with only 3 jig rods on the deck. I only spent4 hours out there and managed 6 fish, nothing spectacular, but far better than the last 5 days combined. On Tuesday I went out with my buddy Brian, he picks me up at 7:00am at the dock and I jump in the boat with only 2 rods, “This will be all I need today brother. “Oh come on, you gotta be kidding me,” he barked back at me. So what do I do, I grab my 6 other rods with various winter baits tied on and pack a little bag with supporting tackle. First three hours we tossed them other baits to no avail. We finally pulled up onto the back side of an island in an oxbow and Brian catches our first keeper on a dropshot. Okay, I’m done with this other stuff, you found em with the search bait, I’m goin to the jig and not putting it down till we leave this place. I did manage two bites, but missed both, well actually, them fish missed my jig cause there was nothing there when I popped em. HAR! I told Brian, “Dood, we gotta go, it’s time I show you how we catch em here in the winter, enough of this “fairy wand” and reaction stuff, it ain’t workin and I have very little confidence in this area. It’s a great summer spot, but clearly they are not here and willing right now.

So off we went. It didn’t take long before I missed a fish in the deeper weeds on that jig. Brian was fishing his drop shot and caught a 2 pounder almost simultaneously. See, I told ya there was fish here and we’d catch em! We just gotta be patient and fish. “Yer gettin killed with this dropshot Cooch, you better get yours, I already got ya 2-ZIP!” Ya right, yer in fer a rude awakening brother, just gimme time I think to myself. And then it started! Over the next 3 hours, I put a clinic on him with that jig catching 3-5 pounders. Amazingly, Brian stuck with his dropshot and was just astounded and couldn’t believe I now had him 8 – 2. It could have been a lot worse as I had at least a dozen other fish during this period that bit and missed my jig. “I would have never believed that jig would out fish this dropshot in the winter if I had not seen it myself “, I can’t count the number of times he repeated this to himself and me the remainder of the day.

“You certainly opened my eyes to something about these fish here the past couple of days Cooch. After showing me those fish yesterday, I would have never believed there were that many fish in any one area. I can only imagine the number of other areas we frequent every day that are just like that and ya just can’t catch em. More importantly, you showed me today how deadly that jig is when ya find the right group and I now understand why you fish it as much as ya do. It’s time we spend more time fishing it, I can see I have a lot ta learn about using it.” It’s real simple Brian, this jig is the one bait, you can catch fish on year round. If ya don’t fish it, ya can’t build the confidence in it. When I’m not getting bit, I’d rather be not getting bit with a jig in my hand. When the fish trigger on it, I don’t wanna miss that bite, cause you’ll crush em and yer gonna crush em bigger than everyone else.

To me, nothing could be more simpler than that. FISH ON!

Winter time fishing has always been one of my favorite times to fish here on the California Delta. It presented challenges that I could always unlock with a jig, whether it be pounding the shallow dirty waters of rock levee walls or hoppin-n-poppin that jig in deeper lightly stained areas ranging from 12-25 feet. The one common factor in these two patterns for me, was light penetration, actually, the lack of light penetration. Find those groups of fish in low light conditions, and I could catch em with consistency, shallow or deep. This past year, much like the past 2-3 years, the conditions here on the River have changed.

To the point, the abundance of the various vegetation growth has been much heavier than I can remember. This abundance of growth has provided much more cover and places for the bass to hide and congregate. More importantly, it has filtered the water here to where it is gin clear through out most of the system. This allows for high light penetration, which forces the hybrid Floridas here, to once again make an adjustment in accordance to their surroundings. Cold, clear water fishing this river is the new challenge.

Since mid November, when the water here first dipped below 50 degrees, and I couldn’t catch those “clock work” winter fish, I began changing the areas and locations of where I was looking for bass. To my surprise, I stumbled onto an area that was loaded with fish. I could actually see hundreds, maybe thousands of fish in one 300 yard area. These fished ranged in all sizes. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me that these fish were lumbering in 4-7 foot of water, cruising in and out of the sparse, dying weeds. To this day, these fish, as well as three other wintering pods I’ve located in similar areas, are still all grouped up in these small wolf packs, where the water temps range from 41-44 degrees. Catching these fish, has been the biggest challenge for me in all the days and years I’ve fished this river.

Most days, during this time, I can catch one or two from the group. A jig fish here, a dropshot fish there, pick one off with a ripbait, I even caught a couple on a splitshot one day. I’ve sat countless hours on these fish over the past month and a half, tossed the kitchen sink at em. I’ve drug out my tackle shed, going back 20 years using baits from “back in the day”, Yet I’m still  bewildered as I watch them swim all around me, unable to catch them with any consistency.

I was on one of these spots with a long time friend the other day. Most of my daily trips have been solo, me and these groups of fish. I’ve been trying to get guys to go to these fish with the hopes that maybe one of em with a slightly different approach or perspective, might help in unlocking the key to git em ta go. More importantly, I needed ta prove to someone, anybody I could, that I was not seeing things, these are indeed bass, and there’s more than can be counted. There are those who claim this River is in trouble, the numbers have been depleted, a certain size range has been hurt by spraying or what ever. I know after the past two months, this is not the truth about the numbers or size of bass in this river right now. They ARE here, I have only located 4 groups in different areas, I can only imagine how many other areas on this water way are harboring the same groups on non-biting fish. My buddy saw first hand, what I have been seeing, they ARE here. The challenge is, How do we catch em?

A couple of days since that trip last week, I have actually been able to catch a few more fish out of each pod than the previous month. The change I had ta make, was simple, yet one of the hardest things for most bass fishermen who chase bass on this river are capable of succumbing too. SLOW DOWN! When you think you have slowed down enough, you better slow down some more. If ya still can’t git bit, stop ALL movement and dead stick it. Didn’t matter if it was my jig, a dropshot or c-rigged Lizard, if it just sat there and didn’t move, eventually one of these fish would return to that spot I just cast and spooked em away from, to eventually come back and  grab that bait. For me, that is SO difficult ta do, let that bait just sit there from 5-10 minutes and not move it. Yet what I discovered, even if I couldn’t hook em, I was getting bit 5-7 times an hour. THAT is a vast improvement versus the way I had been fishing for these bass over the past few weeks.

It’s winter fishin’ Cooch, the bass’ metabolism is at it’s lowest point right now. You are not gonna jump on one of these schools of fish and be lucky enough to git 7 bites in an hour and pull 25 pounds from it like ya did last Wednesday, much less repeat it every day. When in the DEAD of winter, and the fishing seems DEAD, listen to what is going on around you and the fish, DEADSTIK em! In as much as I hate to “deadstik” my baits for bass, I hate it even more when I can see em, and not git bit fishing the way, “I like” to fish. Right now, I’m liking this deadstikin’ thing!

Happy New Years people!

Falling temps and the presence of early morning fog are key indications the bass here will be starting to get active as they begin feeding and fattening up for their winter run. The past two weeks we have seen the river temps drop from the mid 60s down to as low as 54 in some areas, most of the river is settling in at about 56-57 degrees. The schools of shad that have been hunkered in the backs of sloughs and in calm, no current,  oxbows, are now starting to move and scatter out into their deeper haunts. Areas where we’ve been fishing isolated schools of fish sitting on the shad, are now beginning to roam up and down the contours of that first drop off and weed edge as they follow and pursue the bait. This has opened up a couple of things for us, first a wider area to catch these roaming fish as they are not all bunched up with the shad schools now and the reaction bite using shad like baits is starting to become more consistent and reliable on a daily basis.

There are still a lot of smaller fish in the system that are very aggressive and willing to eat most crawdad like baits. The Yamamoto 330 & 301 Kreature has been a steady fish catching bait all summer long. We have been fishing this bait on a True Tungsten 1/4oz bullet weight and fishing it very aggressively down to 15 feet. Using the tungsten weight has been a key tactic in that it allows us to better feel those quick pick ups of the fish down in the grass. We began to experience fewer big bites last week on the Kreature once the temps began to drop. It seemed that the smaller fish were readily willing to eat it.  As ya can see by this picture, they are not shy of eating crawdads here and this was taking the term “DOUBLE HOOK UP” to the extreme. After catching this lil guy, I decided we really needed to slow down our presentations with the falling temps. A slow drag through the grass may produce the better bites we had been getting versus the fast erratic retrieve we used all summer. This indeed began working for us, although we really had to commit to the slower fishing while yielding less bites for quality bites.

In making this adjustment of slowing down, we also changed our jig trailers from the single tailed grubs, to pork. The brown jig with the olive or black blue pork fished much slower, is producing more bites right now than the grub. My guess is the gills and shiners the bass have been feeding on all summer long, have moved out of their haunts and crawdads are becomming the target focus of the larger fish as they too are on the move and moving into softer bottom areas as they start their fall-winter migration, become easy targets for the bass. This, along with the influx of hyacinth that is being scattered all over the river, especially on rocky banks, we’ve began to experience a decent lil flip/punch bite around isolated tulle clumps that are surrounded by this invading surface plant. The nice thing about the Hyacinth taking over, we can get rid of the extreme heavy weighted punch rigs as this stuff is easily flipped into with a 1/2 oz or 3/4 oz rig.

Over the past week or so, the jerkbait and lipless cranks have become the go too bait as we can fish reaction for them shallow and deep. With the falling temps and overcast from frontal clouds and the fog, the better fish are getting into that chasing mode. We’ve changed up from the LC Bevy shad to the deeper diving Stacee 90. The Staycee is also a better suspending bait once ya git it down to  6-9 feet.  Pauses and short twitches over the deeper grass has been best for the good ones. Shad patterns have been better, versus the Aurora I normally fish here this time of year.

The Lipless crank is putting the most keeper fish in the boat on a daily basis. The LC LVR D7 is ideal for these shallower fish with it’s light weight and non-sinking properties. The bass have been in the pockets of the grass next to tulles up on the flats, or right on the edge of the grass line above the drop off. They have also been on the insides of openings, just out of the current in all the flooded ponds & lakes. The bites have come right away and this bait is ideal for that. If ya use a Rattle Trap or LV 500, the bait is too heavy and gets caught up in the grass before ya can git yer retrieve going. The LVR D7, subtly floats , resembling an injured shad and then turns sideways as ya begin yer retrieve, hence avoiding the shallow grass. After a few turns and that bait uprights, they grab it! This is reminiscent of the old Mann’s BB Shad we used to have so much success with way back in the early 90s before that bait was discontinued.

Ya gotta love the late fall fishin here on the Delta, for the fishin IS getting good, but more importantly, the recreational users of the river are GONE! YEEHAW!!!!!!!!!!

and the Delta bass are starting to move up and down the water column feeding aggressively. The shad, which seem to be a lot more abundant this year than the past two, are showing up in many of their common hang outs. Find these larger schools of shad and you’ll find active bass.

The past week has presented my clients and I,  with a much familiar pattern as we’ve experienced the entire year, constant and abnormal weather changes. Each day since the middle of last week, we have experienced a completely different weather pattern than the day before. My home made fish barometer, each day has risen and fallen like the tides here. As I have preached all year long, it’s taken constant and regular changes in how we are fishing to consistently catch fish every day.  One thing that has been consistent for me, is that we are catching fish regularly, on the same patterns and in the same areas each day. It doesn’t matter if we’re West, Middle, East or venturing in the South Delta, we’re only catching fish in certain, isolated areas with in these regions. Deep water nearby, limited to NO current have been the norm, although we are finding fish in isolated, dining room table kinda places where current is present. These dining room tables though, are not yielding the 4-9 pound class fish we’re catching in the no current zones. Yet these isolated tables will offer up numbers of fish and decent action with catches ranging from undersized keepers, and  up to 3 pounds.

Thursday in that pouring down rain storm, I had Sky and his dad Brian  tossing the reaction bait sink at em. We started off catching four really nice fish chucking white/chart spinnerbaits. When it rains, that 1 oz Yamamoto with the combo blades is the work horse, yet when the sun pops out, we’re switching to the lighter RMD blades with the smaller, double willows. These are the baits with the slots cut into the blade, which allow the bait to be fished slower, yet those blades turn at 3 times the speed of a normal blade with those cut slots. This creates a lot of flash, which in this clear water we have right now, the bass can pick up from much greater distances.

Later in the afternoon, we moved off the deep back sides of islands after catching a few fish on Jigs and Kreatures on the ledges, and went to the rocks with an LC BDS4 in Red craw. This paid huge dividends for Brian as he hung into an 8.5 lb bass that was roaming the rocks feeding. We caught several other nice keeper bass along this weedless rocky bank before calling it a day.

Friday, I knew we were in trouble with the post front high pressure and blue bird sky. During the past month, fishing jigs, big worms and the Kreature off the back sides of islands has been the norm for us. When the sun comes out, this has been a steady pattern ta catch fish. But when ya get one of these kinda days right after a storm, many times the best bet to catch fish is tie on a crankbait and cover as much water as possible. After chuckin blades and crank the first two hours, I decided to abandon that and go back to our bottom bouncin pitches and flips on the deeper stuff. This paid off and we caught fish consistently the remainder of the day. We didn’t catch any bruisers, but we caught six ta seven fish in the 3 pound range and a lot more smaller fish. No a great day fishing, but it sure turned out a lot better than I had expected with the conditions. Fall is definitely here, the bass are indeed transitioning and feeding better than when this condition hits us in the Summer and Spring.

Saturday and Sunday I spent the morning tossin’ Punkers and Ripbaits in search of stripers, both out west and in the Tract.  Much to my surprise, I began catching more largemouth and no stripers. Monday morning I had Brian again, only this time he brought his wife Yvonne instead of his son Sky. We started out west in Big Break and found the fish I found Saturday still there and feeding heavily. Dropshots, bone jerkbaits and Kreatures in 330 put 15-20 fish in the boat before the storm and winds forced us out of the west. We bounced around from there back to the middle Delta, only catching a fish here and there. We ended up in a dead end slough below Mildred and were scratching our heads at 2:00pm as we couldn’t by a reaction fish in this storm. After thinkin it through, the only reaction bait we failed to toss this day, was a lipless crank. I pulled out a LVR D-7 American shad and began to catch fish while my clients were tossing other baits. I then grabbed a lipless for Brian for him ta join in. He kept coming up with grass on every cast and not catching any fish. Hmm, so I’m thinkin, is it just the presentation, the angler or the bait? So I take the rod from Brian and give him mine with the LVR D7 on, first cast he gets a chunky 3 pounder. I begin to cast the bait he had and notice the bait is much heavier than the LVR D7, so I dig out a Chartuese Shad LVR D7 and tie it on, Bingo. Didn’t seem to matter if it was ChartShad, American shad or ghost, they were poppin that light weighted LC Lipless up against the tulles. We then got caught right in the middle of a striper boil between us and the tule island. After pickin off 6-7 2-4 pound stripers and things settled down, I finally put two and two tagether. It was the stripers that were pushing the shad up into the shallows against the tulles, them largemouth, were just sitting there waiting for em! We ended up having a great last 2 hours tossing the lipless, capped by a 6.5 pounder I hit on the last pass around our last island before heading back to the dock.

Been an awesome 5 days of fishing here

Fishin the Delta has been fairly good here all month, and has been the case all year long, our weather patterns are constantly changing and not settling in for any given period of time. Early September we saw a big cold air blast come in and drop the temps from the high 70′s low 80′s to below 70. Water temps are cooler out west, as low as 68 in some areas, the middle Delta has been hovering around 71-73 and you can now find areas down in the south where it’s again peaking at 77-78 degrees. This temp drop put a big halt on the great all day topwater bite we had through August, it’s still there, but ya gotta really work it for bites. The jig and blade bite has turned on with the cooling temps and fish are starting to stack up in areas where ya find concentrations of Shad. Don’t let the smaller fish fool ya, you find these active smaller fish, back it out and work the ledges, you’ll begin to find the bigger fish with regularity once ya weed through all the small ones.

Last Friday I got a chance to fish with a young man who just graduated from college from Italy. Kinda cool his parents git him a graduation gift to come to California, spend a week in San Francisco, fish a day with me on the Delta, then head to Yosemite. Alberto only fishes a bunch of small ponds and rivers in Italy, this was his first trip on a bassboat on a big pond. Upon jumping in the boat, I made a snap decision to take advantage of a large cloud mass that had converged on us coming from the east. Although we had not had much of an early topwater bite, I knew this morning they would go off, even here in Sandmound where the bite has been fairly slow all summer.  I showed Alberto my homemade bass barometer and explained with this low pressure drop, and that bottle filling up with that much water, the bass today are gonna be chewin. He looked at me in disbelief and send Bravo, let’s go! While heading around the islands towards Dutch going out to Big Break, we stopped at a tule island intersection and started to fish, versus taking the time to idle west. This turned out to be a great decision as we were rewarded with an amazing buzzer bite catching 12 fish over the first 2.5 hours,  all in the 3-4 pound class. Not giants by Delta standards, but when ya git into topwater action on 3-4 pounders, that’s just plain fun in any one’s book.

There was a definite key in getting these fish to commit to the buzzbait, you had to fish it as slow as you possibly could ta git em to come get it. I rigged Alberto up with a modified Yamamoto buzzbait where I had replaced the metal blade with a four bladed clacker. I used that standard Yamamoto buzzer so we would have two different presentations, his slow methodical gurgle and a fast, squeaky burn.  It was clear on his first cast, which of the two they wanted. Awesome morning, then once the clouds dissipated and the high pressure system set in, things turned around on us at 10:00am. The bite got much tougher and we had to go back to the tule island drop off bite ta catch fish the rest of the day. Jigs, Kreatures and a 10″ Texas rigged worm filled us with fair action the rest of the day. When we got back to the house I showed him once again my fish meter, the water in that bottle had dropped out and was actually forming a bubble outside of the mouth. That’s why we had such a tough bite in the later part of the day, the high pressure system set in, sending the bass deeper and burrying into the grass.

On Saturday I got to fish with a father son tandem, Joe & Joe. We again had the cloud cover first thing. The morning was much cooler, yet the cloud cover was much thicker all day so I had them tossing the topwater again. They caught a few, but not with the kinda results of the day before, at 8:30a I made the decision we needed to go back to the deeper, island ledge pattern and bounce the bottom and grass edges. Had a great day from that point on catching good quality fish on dropshots, jigs, Kreatures and Claymores. Biggest fish of the day was caught on a brown jig with the 164 Yamamoto grub single tailed trailer. It was one of the few times all day I picked up a rod and fished. Young Joe expressed that he needed ta fish and build confidence in using the jig. He fishes it often, but like most, tends to put it down too soon not getting bit. I had made one cast, and in explaining about the Positive, neutral and negative modes of the bass, that ya gotta allow yerself the opportunity to fish through all three phases and zones in an area ta give yerself the opportunity to catch them in all three modes, I git bit in 25 foot and haul up a 6.5 pounder.  If ya always stay in the shallow box(1-6 feet) yer only fishing for 5% of the bass population here. I had made that one cast, Joe had made 6-7 not covering the entire spectrum, once explaining this to him, and him seeing the results, the light came on. Joe Jr. caught his first jig fish here and probably another 10-15 more before the day was done. Later in the day the wind came up, we changed to tossing Claymores and Spinnerbaits when it was tough to hold position and fish deep. Great day fishin with these two and the Delta bass cooperated nicely with the game plan for the day.

Fishin here is up and down daily, hourly even.  There’s a ton of smaller fish on feeding binges all over the river, you’ve got to be persistant and weed through these smaller fish not giving up on the areas where ya find em, the bigger fish are there too, ya just gotta change up yer tactics ta catch em. We’re getting to that summer to fall transition and the comming months I believe are gonna be some of the best fishing we’ve seen here in the fall the past few years. If ya wanna git tuned in to what these bass are doing here, do give me a call and let’s git ya out there headed in the right direction. Don’t assume I’m so busy that I don’t have open days to git ya out, I’m fishin 7 days a week right now and have plenty of openings, let’s git ya on em!  Keep a Tight Line!

Back in July I got the chance to spend the day with these two for young Daniel’s 10th birthday, Monday, was dads turn. Playing “hooky” had a two fold meaning fer Daniel yesterday.  Young Daniel git’s it and remembered me telling him the last trip, “Hook sets are free dood!”.  On a day when he got to play “hooky” from school, he set the hook more times than I have Senkos in my boat. We started the morning off tossing topwater at day break, after an hour of chuckin-n-windin with no takers, we headed off to the islands of Middle River and started bottom bouncin Kreatures, Senkos, Iovinno S20s and Jigs.  Water temps this morning were at 71.2 degrees, and I wasn’t gonna force the topwater bite as temps dropped here a little more from this weekend.

So we went down after em with Kreatures and jigs. The bite wasn’t as good as it has been all week, yet we were indeed getting consistently bit in the areas we fished. Our first stop was on a big point off the main river channel with a long straight run of  some rocks, tules, a nice trough to the grass line and then the drop off out into 16-19 feet. With the high water this morning, the fish we caught were tucked up against the tule clumps. All lil chunky 2 pounders with bulging bellies. The bass down here are still feeding good on the shad in this area.  As the tide began to fall we moved out to the center tule islands and began to fish the grass patches out on the ledges and flats coming off the islands.  We were having to work for our bites and I explained to both we needed to slow it way down and git the baits a little deeper. Dan Sr popped a really nice jig fish out in 17 feet.

As the tide began to fall out even more, we worked out way from the really deep ledges up to the big flats that extended40-50 feet off the islands. These flats are only about 4-6 feet with grass clumps right on top of the ledge and a pattern that I have been catching some really nice jig fish on the past 10 days. Today, they just didn’t want that jig and the bites were far and few between. Had Daniel switch to the Senko and Dan Sr & I switch to the Iovinno S20 and we started ta just crawl the baits right on the outer edges of the grass just before the drop off. We began getting more and more bites and started putting the fish in the boat. Not the bigger fish but a lot of fish catching action. Daniel caught his best fish of the day on this first island after switching from his favorite Senko(236, the one I got him hung up on back in July) to my favorite Senko, the 301. He kept going back to his 236, but after going biteless fer 15-20 casts, he’d put that 301 bait back on and start catchin them again.

We bounced around from various islands, tossed some Birds with no positive results, caught a bunch more fish on the S20 before calling it a day and heading back to the house. There’s a purty good punch bite out there right now on bigger fish. There’s also a good Bird/Frog bite up in the shallows with heavy cover. There’s also a great deep water jig bite too.  These three tactics take patience, specialized equipment, a bit more skills and may require fishing a bunch of spots, changing locations constantly looking for that big bite or two. Ya wanna catch a bunch of fish, find the shad & shiner schools out behind the tule islands that have the shallow to deep water ledges!

For the past two weeks, we’ve been experiencing a very good topwater bite here tossing Yamamoto Buzzbaits and the new Flipin The Bird baits.  Working the points of the oxbows with extended grass points leading into deeper water during the first two hours of the morning, the buzzbait has been very effective. Then once the sun came up above, we would pitch and flip The bird the remainder of the day to shallow areas with sparse tulles and broken cheese clumps. Water temps were in the high 70′s and even peaking 80 degrees in some isolated areas. The fish were very aggressive early  chasin’ down the buzzer. Later in the day, we had to slow it down,  show em the bird, fishing slow and methodical.

That all changed on last Sunday as we had an over night cold snap the next three mornings. A solid marine layer creeped over the Mt Diablo range from the west, and we even had patches of fog rising off the water’s surface. The water temp pummeled to 71 degrees by Monday morning, shutting the topwater bite off all week. It was very tough getting TW bites early and late, when we did, they were always good fish, but just big swirls and missed toilet flushes. Monday we made the adjustment about 10:00am and started to fish for em down below and abandoned the TW bite the remainder of the day. We started fishing the back sides of big, long meandering tule islands that had 4-7 foot flats coming 30-40 feet beyond the tules, before dropping into 15-23 feet. The first one we came to I stumbled on as we were running from one spot to another, I could see the yellow bottom contour along with sparse clumps of weeds. For me, this is a clear sign of fish activity in an area versus a bank that all you can see is weeds and a dark bottom. The cleared out areas indicate to me there are a lot of fish moving around, in and out of this particular zone, either spawning or in this case foraging.

Upon stopping and idling back to the area I had just passed over, I could see down in the avenues schools of shiners running around frantically. Further study of the areas as I began to have my guys fish, I also noticed schools of bait on my graph hunkered to the bottom in about 14 feet right off the drop off. Typical summer pattern fer bass here, one I had yet to follow and pursue. It didn’t take long Monday befoe my guys started catching small fish on Senkos. I had em upgrade to a Kreature & Jig to entice bigger bites. Those bigger bites started coming in numbers. After fishing almost 3/4 of a mile of bank behind this one island, I began to get a clearer picture of the pattern and sections of bank the groups of fish were holding too. “let’s go back down this stretch again fellas, only this trip, as the tide has fallen out a little, we’re gonna back off and see if we find better fish. I think as the afternoon progresses, and the tide falls more, we’re gonna see some really nice fish start ta show up here, the conditions and indications are perfect here fer some big ones, we just gotta weed through all these 8″-15″ fish and be patient.”

This turned out to work perfectly for us, as the 2nd pass indeed provided better fish, as long as we stayed further off and outside the weed clumps in around 7-9 feet. When ever we casted up closer to the tulles and that 3-6 foot zone, we would catch the smaller fish, cast after cast. After our second pass, we’d run it again as the sun got higher and the tide fell further out, I knew even bigger fish, if they are here, would move in to feed. The bites got scarcer, but the ones we got were definitely getting bigger! Those smaller fish were hunkerin down out of harms way as these bigger fish started to move in to feed. We got a 9.5, 7 & a 6 on that last pass before calling it a day and heading back to the dock.

We followed this pattern all week long. Go toss buzzbaits the first hour, then head off to find the right kind of islands holding this summer feeding groups of fish. The 330 Kreature and the brown jig with the 164 Yamamoto single tail proved to be the best baits for us. The Kreature though, along with the jig with a Sweet Beaver attached, attracted the most bites. The smaller fish under 2.5 pounds, seemed to be more than willing to snap on a crawdad imitating bait. Yet those bigger fish, they would not fall for the craw imitators. Those bigger fish were feeding on the gills, baby bass and Shiners. When we put that Single tailed grub on there, the quality of the fish we now started to catch was much better than the craw trailers.

It’s been an awesome week of fishing. In as much as I love to catch bass here on topwater, I love it more when we can catch em on jigs, cause I know, that jig is gonna out produce the top water day in and day out, especially when we get these top water killing cold snaps. We caught nine fish this week over 7 pounds and up to 9.5 lbs. We haven’t caught that many big fish on the topwater, over the past 4 weeks, while enjoying a really good topwater bite here.

The past couple of days there have been a few heated threads on several fishing websites in regards to a very unfortunate situation in a tournament up at Clearlake last weekend. We can prevent this, and here are my thoughts on how and why.

This is an age old problem. No single organization, has been immune to this happening. This has happened many times and has been  reported on Westernbass.COM as far back as 1996 when we were NCBF.COM . There is always a group that feels the need to injustly crucify the Tournament Director & Org.  First and foremost, ClearLake, is notorious for providing this type of situation to occur, it happens up there EVERY SINGLE Summer. No org has been untouched by one of these occurrences up there. Over the years, we’ve had repeated occurrences with deep caught fish during tournaments at McClure and Oroville, long before some of the recent accused  were on the scene. Clubs, across this state, run in to this as well, although on a much smaller scale, yet the percentages of alive:dead ratio, will be the same. Fortunately for most club, it goes un-noticed and they do the best they can to improve for the next outing. Fish mortality in tournaments, is inevitable, unless both groups are on their toes and always thinking ahead to be prepared, as well as willing to act in defense of preventing this type of occurrence.

It’s a situation that sneaks up on the tournament scene. It always has, and it always will. Education is the ultimate solution, IT IS NOT BULL!  Calif DFG does the best they can with their permit regulations, bag limit requirements and tournament length limit in the summer. Unfortunately, we don’t have a normal, functioning DFG here, who’s only interest should be solely on Fish & Game. DFG is controlled by the State politicians, who syphon the money we put into the DFG coffers for the State’s failing general fund. Money, that certainly when acquired in any other state, would be normally directed to activities, functions and promotions to prevent angling situations that are distressful to the fisheries such as what occurred at Clearlake. Unfortunately, a lot of critical, as well as asinine decisions are not made by game biologists, but public officials, idiots that we elect into office. Bottom line here, the CA DFG, is incapable of educating the anglers at this time. The DFG does what they can, but there is more they can do.

Unfortunately for tournament organizations, they take the biggest hit in all of this. I believe it is the intent of every single organization out there, to impose and protect our fisheries as best they can. Unfortunately, at the local state level, they too are bind by the constraints of lack of funds to insure every single possible avenue is covered, in every single tournament through out the year. None of our local orgs have the kind of draw that orgs like BASS & FLW have to where they can recruit, from with in their state ranks, a very large volunteer working crew for each of their events. Over the years, the various different orgs have implemented a wide array of preventive functions for their weigh-in processes, that are intended to help insure fish mortality in their events. Yet they still need to be educated themselves, clearly, there is still more they too can do.

I believe there are two steps they can do to help get their events on track for every outing. They should put together a check list, that every single angler in their event must read and sign. It can be done at check in right along with the waiver and sign up signatures. Make it a carbon copy so the anglers take it with them, no excuses now. Ice, functional livewells, fish juice, needles, release procedures, etc, what ever they chose to put in there in an effort to remind and educate the anglers. Secondly, do away with dry livewell checks at the top of the ramp. All livewell checks are done in the water and those pumps had better be running with full force. Fix it now or you don’t get to fish, refund their money and send em home. They should also contact Tony Stoltz and inquire to the use and function of his new tank system. I’ve seen this thing first hand at the C.O.Pro-Teen, a couple of AC Pro-Ams and I know the folks at WON hired him for his tanks down at the U.S. Open. DFG can step up and dictate they have a system like this at every event, whether they rent Tony’s, have him build one or build it themselves. That system is awesome! These three steps alone will help them at every event to be prepared and assure they are taking the ultimate actions to prevent a big fish kill due to the Orgs actions or lack there of.

As for the anglers, they indeed, must be further educated and reminded, constantly. The anglers lack of fish care through out their event, is the root cause of the problem when we have fish kills like this. We get so caught up with our egos and the spur of the competition moment, that during this time of year, if we slip and forget for as little as a 30 minute window, putting our fish under undue stress, we’ve started the kill process, period!!!!!!!!!!!! It indeed are the anglers, who must take it upon themselves, to assure that for every single minute a bass to be weighed in during a tournament they are participating in, those fish are taken care of for the full duration that you have them in your boat’s livewell. The fish’s death, begins in our boats, and if anglers can not comprehend this, they need to get out of the tournament scene or suffer a far greater penalty, be it DFG fines or tournament penalties and disqualifications. That indeed is an education most anglers will comprehend, along with the steps mentioned above put forth by the orgs.

If everyone works together through education, this problem can be overcome. If we all stop pointing the finger, getting all pissy and chest thumping like on the internet and instead work to a solution, we can indeed prevent massive fish kills like this at our events in the future.       Just do it people!